um.

"Oh, general!" said Petronius, "permit us to listen from near by to that
glad laughter which is of a kind heard so rarely in these days."

"Willingly," answered Plautius, rising; "that is my little Aulus and
Lygia, playing ball. But as to laughter, I think, Petronius, that our
whole life is spent in it."

"Life deserves laughter, hence people laugh at it," answered Petronius,
"but laughter here has another sound."

"Petronius does not laugh for days in succession," said Vinicius; "but
then he laughs entire nights."

Thus conversing, they passed through the length of the house and reached
the garden, where Lygia and little Aulus were playing with balls, which
slaves, appointed to that game exclusively and called spheristae, picked
up and placed in their hands. Petronius cast a quick passing glance at
Lygia; little Aulus, seeing Vinicius, ran to greet him; but the young
tribune, going forward, bent his head before the beautiful maiden, who
stood with a ball in her hand, her hair blown apart a little. She was
somewhat out of breath, and flushed.

In the garden triclinium, shaded by ivy, grapes, and woodbine, sat
Pomponia Graecina; hence they went to salute her. She was known to
Petronius, though he did not visit Plautius, for he had seen her at the
house of Antistia, the daughter of Rubelius Plautus, and besides at the
house of Seneca and Polion. He could not resist a certain admiration
with which he was filled by her face, pensive but mild, by the dignity
of her bearing, by her movements, by her words. Pomponia disturbed his
understanding of women to such a degree that that man, corrupted to the
marrow of his bones, and self-confident as no one in Rome, not only felt
for her a kind of esteem, but even lost his previous self-confidence.
And now, thanking her for her care of Vinicius, he thrust in, as it were
involuntarily, "domina," which never occurred to him when speaking, for
example, to Calvia Crispinilla, Scribonia, Veleria, Solina, and other
women of high society. After he had greeted her and returned thanks, he
began to complain that he saw her so rarely, that it was not possible to
meet her either in the Circus or the Amphitheatre; to which she answered
calmly, laying her hand on the hand of her husband:

"We are growing old, and love our domestic quiet more and more, both of
us."

Petronius wished to oppose; but Aulus Plautius added in his hissing
voice,--"And we feel stranger and stranger among peop